‘Identify and kill them’: How calls for Muslim genocide were given at VHP’s Delhi event

North East Delhi, which witnessed anti-Muslim riots in February 2020, reverberated with hate and provocative speeches on October 9 during an event organized by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) at Dilshad Garden.

TCN Staff Correspondent 

NEW DELHI —  “Cut their hands, behead them. In logon ko chun chun kar maaro (identify and kill these people).” Make plans, 50,000 people will join you from Loni (Ghaziabad).” “If you want to set them straight, there is only one solution — total boycott.”

North East Delhi, which had witnessed waves of bloodshed and destruction of properties in February 2020, reverberated with such hate and provocative speeches on Sunday (October 9) during an event — ‘Virat Hindu Sabha’ — organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) at Dilshad Garden.

Prominent among those who attended the public meeting were Parvesh Verma (BJP’s member of Parliament from West Delhi), Nand Kishore Gujjar (BJP legislator from Loni in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad district), among others.

The gathering was allegedly organised to stoke communal tension in the wake of the brutal murder of one Manish, 20, who was stabbed to death near his house on October 1 evening in East Delhi’s Sunder Nagri as a fallout of an old rivalry. 

Three men — Faizan, Bilal and Sajid — were arrested the next morning for killing the youth, and the police had ruled out any communal angle in the incident. A video of the gruesome murder shows the three men stabbing the victim simultaneously as bystanders watch without intervening. 

Targeting the Muslim community for the incident, a religious leader, Yogeshwar Acharya, told the people that time had come to teach them a lesson.

“Despite our strong presence, our Hindu brothers are being killed brutally. This is unfortunate. They will continue to target and kill us until we are together. Therefore, I appeal to everyone to unite. If anyone targets our temples, our women and our Hindu families, don’t just cut their fingers, cut their hands. And if necessary, behead them.,” he said, with a brazen display of impunity.

“What worse will happen?” he asked and answered himself, “At maximum, you will go to jail or one or two of us will be hanged.”

He said they want to have 14 marriages and give birth to 40 children. “Therefore, we must pay attention to such incidents. In logo ko chun chun ke maaro (identify and kill these people),” he added.

Several attempts to reach out to the seer failed as he did not pick up the calls.

Another speaker, Mahant Nawal Kishore Das advised people to procure guns with or without licences to protect their faith and the country.

“Get licenses and buy guns. Don’t worry if you do not get licences. Those who come to kill you, do they have licences? So why do you need a licence?” he asked and suggested the gathering to unite so that the police let them do whatever they want.

“The Delhi Police commissioner will offer us tea and let us do what we want if we are together,” he added.

When asked about his comments, Das outrightly denied having made any such statement wherein he asked people to pick up weapons.

“I did not say that people should pick up guns. I used the word arms, by which I meant sticks and stones, not firearms,” he told TwoCircles.net.

“In addition,” he said, “I called for unity among ourselves in our defence against the jihadis. They killed our boy at six in the evening, but we acted as a mute spectator,” he claimed.

Asked whom he referred to as jihadis, he said, “Not all Muslims, but all them who refuse to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ (hail the motherland) and kill us.” 

He hung up the call before this correspondent could ask any more questions.

BJP MP Parvesh Verma, who has courted controversy earlier as well with his remarks against anti-CAA protesters, appealed to people to do a complete economic boycott of Muslims. 

“If you want to fix the minds of these people, there is only one solution — total boycott. Don’t go to their restaurants, and don’t buy from their shops. If you see them selling fish, and meat without a license, inform the MCD (the municipal body) and ensure action against them. Just do this, this is the solution. Do you agree? Raise your hands if you agree,” he told the gathering amid cheers.

The lawmaker then administered an oath to everyone, “Say with me: we will boycott them. We will not buy anything from their shops, we will not employ them.”

He alleged Manish was killed because of the “jihadi elements”. “The jihadi elements instil hatred in their children through festivals like Baqrid (Eid al-Adha). Such people can be taught a lesson within 24 hours if the police and Hindus want to do so. But we believe in law and order,” he threatened.

TwoCircles.net contacted him several times but could not get any response.

Speaking at the event, Loni BJP MLA Nand Kishor Gurjar went to the extent of calling Muslims “pigs”. He used filthy language to describe Muslims. 

“Sunder Nagri and Nand Nagri have become a hub of pigs. The AAP government is bringing trains filled with Jihadis to Delhi to get their votes. Thirty lakh jihadis have come from Bangladesh and Myanmar to this city,” he said, asking the Delhi Police to register an FIR against Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal for “endangering this city”. 

Continuing to spew venom, he used foul language for Mohammad Akhlaq — who was lynched to death on rumours of consuming and storing beef in 2015 at Bisada village, near Dadri, in Gautam Buddh Nagar.

“Dadri mein ek suar — gaai ko kaatne wala Akhlaq — mar jaata hai to Rahul Gandhi se lekar Akhilesh aur Arvind Kejriwal aise rote hain jaise inka damaad mar gaya ho (when a pig — cow slaughterer Akhlaq — is killed in Dadri, from Rahul Gandhi to Akhilesh and Arvind Kejriwal cry as if their son-in-law is dead),” he said amid claps.

He went ahead to make an admission that he had played a role in the 2020 Delhi communal violence and threatened that he would continue to do so in the future as well.

“When riots broke out in Delhi and these jihadists began killing Hindus, we went there. I was accused of going there with 2.5 thousand people. We had gone there to pacify people. The police lodged a case against me for killing jihadists. We will kill jihadis and continue to do so... Take a pledge that no such incident happens anymore. And whatever is the next plan, whatever is decided here, I am not making tall claims, 50,000 people from Loni will come wherever you ask them to come.”

Asked what prompted him to call Muslims “jihadis”, he told TwoCircles.net, “I have no grudge against Muslims at all. Those who have come here from Myanmar and Bangladesh are jihadis as they are committing crimes here. They have emerged as a threat to our national security.”

Asked about his comments against Akhlaq, he showed no remorse and said there was nothing objectionable in his language. 

VHP International Joint Secretary Surendra Kumar Jain, suggesting that something bad is going to happen, asked the city police chief not to hold them accountable if something happens later.

“Commissioner sir, don’t complain later if something happens,” he said during his speech at the event.

When asked about his ominous message, he said, “We are left with no option but to take law into our own hands. We will have to do whatever it requires to defend ourselves. Therefore, the police should ensure such a situation does not arise.”

‘No permission sought from police’
Faced with a battery of questions with regard to the controversial event, the Delhi Police said the public meeting was organised without permission. 

Shahdara Deputy Commissioner of Police R. Sathiyasundaram said, “No permission was sought for the event. The matter is being investigated. We are verifying the details and examining the footage. Necessary action will be taken against the organizers.”

However, the VHP said it had obtained permission to organise the event.

Surprisingly, but not for many, it all happened in presence of the police. The Delhi riots, which resulted in the deaths of 53 people (the majority of them Muslims) and the loss of properties worth crores, had erupted following BJP leader Kapil Mishra’s provocative speech.

Mishra, addressing a crowd on February 23, 2020, near the Maujpur traffic signal, had given an ultimatum to the police to clear the roads of anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protestors holding a sit-in protest at Jafrabad in Delhi. 

He demanded that the police evict the protestors and threatened violence in case they failed to do so within three days. He had delivered the speech, which raised tensions in the area and precipitated skirmishes that afternoon, in the presence of a senior police officer. 

Still, no action was taken against him.

Defending the provocative speeches made at the vent, VHP spokesperson Vinod Bansal said the rally was organised to register a strong protest against Manish’s killing. 

“Such cases are rising in Delhi. Hindus are angry. Hindus are being killed by Islamist Jihadists throughout the country. The meeting was not targetting any community, but it was against jihadist elements. People would come out in their self-defence against the jihadists if needed,” he told TwoCircles.net.

Asked about the call for an economic boycott of Muslims, he said, “We are against jihadists, not Muslims. We do not subscribe to the idea of boycotting Muslims or the calls to kill them.”